a. Also flavourous. [f. next + -OUS: cf. humorous.]
1. Full of flavor; pleasing to the taste and smell, savory; ‘fragrant, odorous’ (J.).
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 326.
| Sweet Grapes degen’rate there, and Fruits, declin’d | |
| From their first flav’rous Taste, renounce their Kind. |
1725. Pope, Odyss., II. 386.
| Pure flav’rous wine, by gods in bounty giv’n, | |
| And worthy to exalt the feasts of heav’n. |
1819. H. Busk, The Tea, 135.
| The mantling cup, bewitching beauty fills; | |
| The flavorous drop, Affection’s hand instils. |
1847. Blackw. Mag., LXII. Nov., 609/1. The pleasures of the palate, especially, acquire unusual importance, and the discovery of some fragrant fruit or succulent vegetable, the addition to the daily stew of a bird or beast unusually flavorous, causes amongst these grown children as much jubilation as a giant cake amongst a horde of holiday urchins.
fig. 1740. A. Hill, Let., in A. L. Barbauld, Richardson’s Life & Corr. (1804), I. 50. A body produced of force to sustain all the tumult, and sheath the two contraries, in a flavorous and spirited smoothness.
1888. P. Cushing, Blacksmith of Voe, II. iv. 98. Men and women found something unusually flavorous in this piece of gossip.
2. fig. Having a flavour of. rare–1.
1885. G. S. Merriam, Life S. Bowles, I. ii. 14. Up and down the river lie ancient villages, flavorous of the olden time; the one broad street overarched with patriarchal trees, the fine old houses dreaming over their past.
